Historic Route 66 Museum
Kingman, Arizona
This museum makes the case that Route 66 was a great road long before it even became Route 66. Displays, arranged chronologically, show that the future Route 66 was a well-used Indian trail, an easy route for white surveyors and Indian-replacing settlers, a railroad line, an escape route for Great Depression refugees, and then finally the happy Route 66 of tourists and roadtrippers. The blacktop of civilization can easily be discerned in exhibits such as a crude 19th century wagon, a battered 1930s Dust Bowl-mobile, and then a gleaming 1950s Studebaker in sand yellow.
Progress!